Sandy’s Game: Nets, Knicks, and the Marathon

Like six million others around the Northeast, Deron Williams, the Brooklyn Nets point guard, lost power last night. He told the world on Twitter, then the world responded that perhaps Williams should have taken the opportunity this summer to move to Dallas, or Los Angeles, which had courted him as a free agent. He responded that the former has tornadoes, and the latter has earthquakes, but hasn’t tweeted yet this morning. We can only assume his phone has died, and gently point out that if Deron lived in Brooklyn, near the Barclays Center—he lives in SoHo—he might still have power.

There are many more serious concerns in the wake of Sandy, but we can report that all of New York’s major sports facilities seem to be in decent shape, including the Barclays Center, which is scheduled to host the season opener between the Knicks and Nets on Thursday night. The arena seems O.K., but the status of the public transit system that it depends on is still unknown. Other than that, Sandy arrived at a point in the sports calendar where it probably won’t have much impact. Tonight’s N.B.A. season openers are in relatively dry cities, and the next N.F.L. game won’t be played until Thursday, in San Diego. The rest of football has until Saturday for college games, and the N.F.L. front offices have two extra days before the trade deadline, which the league extended in case any G.M. was stuck at home with no power and couldn’t get rid of his third-string wide receiver. (On a minor note: ESPN reports that Packers’ wide receiver Greg Jennings was supposed to have surgery in Philadelphia, but it was delayed because he couldn’t get a flight; he will require several weeks of recovery.) Of course, there is no hockey, because of money, or baseball, because of the Giants. Their victory parade in San Francisco, on Halloween, should go off without any Sandy-related hitches.

Nets-Knicks aside, the other imminent local sporting event is the New York City marathon, which is scheduled to run on Sunday. “We’re extraordinarily lucky the marathon is not today,” the New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said yesterday, which we already knew. But the route largely voids the city’s low-lying, flooded areas, and can be altered if need be. The ferry to Staten Island, which departs from Battery Park, and which many riders take to reach the race’s start, could be a problem. Trees are down near the finish, in Central Park, but given that I saw a street sweeper drive down my street early this morning, wiping away the smattering of leaves that fell in Bed-Stuy, I feel confident that the route will be cleared. Sandy certainly didn’t stop marathoners from getting in their training runs, as Nicholas Thompson tweeted: “Hey runners heading into Prospect Park: it’s pre-marathon taper week. You’re supposed to take Monday off.”

Meanwhile, the area’s athletes joined Deron Williams on Twitter. The Giants’ punter Steve Weatherford said that he was bored, and started posting pictures from the Giants Super Bowl season. J. R. Smith was watching “Martin.” Kris Humphries evacuated. Jason Pierre-Paul cooked ten Hot Pockets early in the night, in case his microwave lost power. I saw one Tweet suggesting that Tim Tebow had positioned himself in midtown, facing south, fending off the rolling blackout with whatever mystical powers he has been given. The night seemed to get progressively worse for Nets rookie Tyshawn Taylor, who lives in Hoboken, where he grew up: